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Correlation <> causation, but sometimes maybe!
When I was but a nipper, a wise old Chairman of a large and successful financial information business gave me a valuable piece of advice:Â That mediators extract better margins in poor information environments and when price discovery is obscured. As his business, amongst others, picked off and commoditised market after market with real-time pricing, […]
Continue readingWPP FY14 interims: flat margins on >+4% organic sales
WPP :Â Â The group is tightening the screw on hiring and staff costs to absorb slowing net sales growth while maintaining the public forecasts of rising GDP and advertising expenditure into 2015. The hitherto growth engine markets of BRIC however, are looking increasingly wobbly, while the contraction in margins at the digitally heavy specialist communications […]
Continue readingThe old fox learns a new trick – Murdoch walks away from Time Warner
Having seen the outrageous premium Murdoch paid for the WSJ, markets must have been salivating over how much he might now stump up for Time Warner. Surely, the $86ps ($80bn) offer was a mere opening shot and that the old boy could be bounced into perhaps three figures, or so the narrative went. Not to […]
Continue readingBMW Q2 results: three quarters of unit sales growth were from China!
What was that supposed Chinese curse – “May your wishes come true”? Well for foreign auto manufacturers dreaming of rising Chinese sales to offset withering Latin American demand and possible interest rate rises this may not have seemed much like a curse. Without China, BMW’s Q2 unit deliveries would have been up by a meagre […]
Continue readingFacebook – Q2 FY14: Squeezing out the returns, but DAU growth slowing
Facebook: Unparalleled qualitative information on consumers and unmatched reach makes Facebook a must have for both advertisers and NSA alike. For the moment, the group is managing the migration to lower yield mobile and overseas users while sustaining overall yield growth of +41% YoY and +14% QoQ and somewhat surprisingly, an average yield increase on […]
Continue readingBSkyB and the rising cost of growth
BSkyB: OK, so what’s the narrative to be? 21st Century Fox (Murdoch) parks some low yielding European payTV assets into a 39% owned subsidiary to raise at least £4.6bn of cash to help fund its (Murdoch’s) $80m Time Warner bid? As long as the market thinks that he will be back for the lot at […]
Continue readingPearson H1 FY14 results – cost savings promised, but no growth committment yet
Markets took a little time to appreciate the current cyclical and structural squeeze on profitability, but eventually got the message. So far, that message is pain today as the group invests to extend is leadership in digital learning through a protracted cyclical downswing in its main markets followed by jam tomorrow as these measures yield […]
Continue readingMurdoch and other people’s money
So you’ve seen the headlines. First Fox’s proposals to consolidate its interests in Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland into BSkyB, described by many as a “tidying up” exercise. Now we are treated to something more substantial to explain the earlier moves; an $80bn (c.$86 ps) plus offer for Time Warner. The newswires are of course […]
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